The Soft Circuits Toolkit: Teaching Mechano-Fluidic Logic for Soft Robotics.

Abstract

As soft robotics gains popularity, novel toolkits and educational systems for soft robotics are emerging. These endeavors focus mainly on teaching the programming or fabrication of soft robots, actuators, and sensors. However, as soft robotics moves toward electronics- and software-free control, it becomes essential to gain hands-on experience in soft fluidic circuit building and physical control. We bridge this gap in the educational landscape through the Soft Circuits Toolkit, a modular system of completely soft components that enables the creation and teaching of fluidic circuits, representing fluidic analogies of components such as resistors, capacitors, diodes, and transistors. The toolkit went through two design iterations and four user tests, which ultimately resulted in the toolkit presented in this article, consisting of 17 component types, a manual, and a companion website. User testing across various dimensions, including user experience, with technical university students (N = 25) indicates that our toolkit is engaging, easy to learn, and promotes problem-solving behaviors. Based on these results, we believe that our kit can support technical universities in teaching about fluidic circuit building and physical control of soft robotics. All fabrication files for this toolkit have been made available open source.